


iris

by novoaa1



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Camp Half-Blood (Percy Jackson), Demigods, F/F, Iris Message (Percy Jackson), Light Angst, carol is daughter of zeus, natasha is daughter of ares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 12:47:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21197894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: “Nat,” Carol calls out again, her voice gravelly and gentle and just the barest hint of static-y, the latter only serving as a rather quaint reminder that Carol’s not physicallyhereright now, no matter how that all-too-familiar feeling of contentment curls warmly in Natasha’s chest at the mere sight of her.“Carol.”Carol winces instinctually at the iron in Natasha’s voice—but, still, Natasha doesn’t back down; sherefusesto, because she’s earned the right to be upset here. She knows it, and Carol does, too.“You’re angry,” Carol speaks, her confidence visibly wavering (even if only slightly).Natasha cocks a brow, refusing to shudder even as she feels goosebumps rising upon her exposed skin. “Really? How could you tell?”Or: Just a Camp Half-Blood AU.





	iris

**Author's Note:**

> written for [v](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/captaincarolnat)'s carolnat week... prompt? supernatural au
> 
> i didnt realize how much i would dig writing this tbh like this was actually mad fun
> 
> also inch restingly enuff i went and saw the lighthouse in theatres like right after i wrote this where this mans really goes off on like a 7-minute monologue-slash-rant to a wide-eyed robert pattinson about how he is incurring the wrath of neptune himself upon the dude all 'cause robert's character had the audacity to be like 'yo dude your cooking actually suCKS' while they were drunkenly bonding like sldkfjsldkfjldjldjlk
> 
> life imitates art, i guess😳🤧

It’s something like 2:00 in the morning at Camp Half-Blood (not that she could ever know for sure, since clocks were something of a rarity there), and Natasha can’t sleep—which, admittedly, isn’t all that unusual, as Natasha’s astonishingly fragmented sleep cycle goes. 

Still, it’s bothersome, to say the least: Natasha's roommate (a slender Sokovian girl named Wanda Maximoff) is mewling soundly in her sleep atop her bunk whilst her pain-in-the-ass twin brother yells loudly at the television one floor down after (presumably) having been successfully shot out in an online match of "Call of Duty: Black Ops III" for the billionth time in the past couple hours.

(Natasha has half a mind to stomp down there and strangle him, her admittedly rather close relationship with Wanda be damned.)

Still, none of this is anything unusual, because she falls asleep nearly every night to the dulcet tones of her idiot brothers and sisters screaming profanity at their virtual opponents in the television for having the nerve to defeat a child of Ares in combat (even online combat, at that). 

She lies wide awake in her bed just across from Wanda's for approximately three more minutes until another raucous slew of renewed shouted insults in fragmented Sokovian and English from downstairs has her sitting bolt upright in place before promptly sliding off her bed to land soundlessly atop the cold metal floor beneath with a suppressed sigh. 

She almost shivers when the realization hits that she’s standing there barefoot in tiny grey cotton shorts and a blood-red spaghetti-strap tank top atop flooring literally forged of iron (because she supposed that regular old wooden flooring wouldn’t quite get across the whole ‘We’re children of Ares and we solve all our problems with thoroughly unsolicited bloodshed’ as poignantly as Natasha’s counterparts would have liked)—still, she consciously stops herself before she can dare to show that manifestation of vulnerability (even under the all-encompassing blanket of night), because she’s not like the rest of them, and she never has been. 

She’s stronger… _better_ (even if lately she’s begun to question whether or not that has any bearing now that she’s here, now that she’s quote-unquote “safe” where neither Ivan nor Madame B. will ever venture to find her ever again—she thinks she believes it a little more every time Carol tells her, and she can’t decide if that’s mildly comforting or just altogether terrifying). 

She’s stronger, and she’s _better_ because she’s been molded since infancy by harsh hands and harsher principles, ones that are more than abhorrent enough to make the children of Ares’ proclivities look like child’s play in comparison. 

And even if she weren’t a Widow, trained to kill and not ask questions and disappear without a trace, she’s Russian, and that has to count for something, even here. 

She thinks about that as she clambers deftly out the second story window and subsequently drops herself down in catlike fashion just before the array of land mines she knows are waiting for her around the immediate perimeter—then, she’s digging up the Kyoketsu-shoge (a Japanese weapon that essentially consists of a length of chain with a double-edged blade on one end and a sturdy metal ring on the other) she always left hidden under the flimsy metal water spout. 

It’s not her favorite weapon, but it most certainly serves its purpose on nights like these: the sharpened blade lodging itself in the trunk of a moderately-sized Sugar maple just outside the land-mine-riddled perimeter with a muted _thunk!_ (her aim has always been impeccable, even in the pitch-blackness of nights like these), providing a tentative anchor (placing all her weight to pull at the lengthy chain would be a beginner’s mistake, she knows) whilst she kicks off the worn metal of the bright-red-spraypainted side of Ares cabin like a springboard and flings herself a good 11 metres off into the darkness, the Kyoketsu-shoge giving her an additional metre or two for good measure.

She lands _hard_ on bare feet in chilled dewy grass, reflexively pitching herself into a neat roll in order to slow her momentum—when she steadies on her feet in the brisk night air, she’s yanking the chain trailing airborne from behind her and gathering up the metres of give in one calloused palm as something of an afterthought before succinctly placing it coiled up in a subtle self-dug ditch a little ways from the Arena off to her left. (She’ll be needing it later, when she deigns to return.)

She’s about to take off jogging towards the forest, maybe all the way to Zeus’ Fist (she hates that even the mere thought of ‘Zeus’ brings her thoughts straight to Carol) where maybe she can _think_ for even the barest of seconds, where maybe she’ll find a bit of sanity amidst the profusion of lawless pandemonium taking her entire being by storm at the current moment—she’s about to take off unbidden into the night, when she hears it: a gentle hiss, the cool dampness of falling mist beading upon her bare skin, a voice she knows better than anyone’s quietly calling out for her.

Her heart thuds violently in her chest as she slowly turns to see a misty two-dimensional apparition of the girl she’s been missing like a powerful ache betwixt her ribs that won’t quite abate no matter what she does, all mussed blonde hair and hazel-brown eyes and streaks of soot tracing the strong line of her jaw—Natasha thinks she’s never seen someone so ethereal in her entire life. 

It’s night where Carol is as well, clearly, though that’s not all that helpful to Natasha in any case, as it’s night in Wisconsin and Montana and Arizona as well as Long Island, meaning she could be anywhere across the damned country for all anyone knows. 

She’s wearing one of Natasha’s shirts, though—the black tee with the wine-red hourglass emblazoned across the chest—and giving Natasha that gentle smirk of hers that never fails to hit her like a sucker punch to the gut even over a flimsy Iris Message, and gods, but she misses her. 

“Nat,” Carol calls out again, her voice gravelly and gentle and just the barest hint of static-y, the latter only serving as a rather quaint reminder that Carol’s not physically _here_ right now, no matter how that all-too-familiar feeling of contentment curls warmly in Natasha’s chest at the mere sight of her. 

“Carol.”

Carol winces instinctually at the iron in Natasha’s voice—but, still, Natasha doesn’t back down; she _refuses_ to, because she’s earned the right to be upset here. She knows it, and Carol does, too. 

“You’re angry,” Carol speaks, her confidence visibly wavering (even if only slightly). 

Natasha cocks a brow, refusing to shudder even as she feels goosebumps rising upon her exposed skin. “Really? How could you tell?”

Carol bites her lip at that, clearly searching for the proper response. “I love you,” she admits after a long protracted silence, and Natasha feels like crying. 

“Don’t.”

“But, I—"

“Carol, I’m not having this conversation over _Iris Message_. Come back to camp, and then we’ll talk.”

Carol blinks, hazel brown eyes softening in such a way that has Natasha’s chest filling with warmth even as she scolds herself for being so fickle. “You’re not gonna say it back?”

Natasha clenches her jaw. “What?”

“I said 'I love you,’ Tash,” Carol entreats oh-so-gently in something like a plea, all trust and vulnerability and treacherously imploring, and Natasha can’t help but feel herself crumble at the sound of it. “Aren't you gonna say it back?”

“I—" she halts herself, swallowing thickly as frustrated and desperate tears burn in her eyes—gods, she hasn’t cried in a long time, and she hates herself for being weak enough to let it happen now. “I-I _do_, Carol—you know that.”

Carol pouts. “I want you to say it, Tash. Please?”

Natasha bites her lip _hard_ at that and doesn’t flinch when she tastes coppery blood, intaking a shuddering breath and nearly crumpling entirely at the tentatively expectant look upon her lover’s face. 

“I… I love you, Carol” she whispers out as a single tear traces wetly down her cheek, and before she can stop herself she’s lunging towards the apparition of her kind-of-sort-of-maybe girlfriend and swiping an arm through the mist to make her go before she can say anything back, before she can break Natasha any further than she already has, the image of her promptly dissolving in a faintly rainbow-tinged spattering of dewy mist until Natasha’s alone again in the New York night, tear tracks drying upon her cheeks, darkness and desolation and an overwhelming _chill_ flooding her senses until she doesn’t quite feel real beneath the sheer magnitude of it all.

And before she can think better of it, she shivers against the cold—she shivers, and she prays that Carol will come back to her, even if she isn’t quite sure they’ll ever be like they were again. 

æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ æ

**Author's Note:**

> thots? (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/))


End file.
